Loss of Perfection
by Wakkomonkey9258
Summary: How do you fix a Mary Sue? Simple, just drain away their powers and leave them stranded on a planet hunted by Death Squads. What other possible way is there?
1. Chapter 1

**The Loss of Perfection **

The Emperor swiveled in his chair, his wrinkled face warping as an evil grin lit up his face. His (Random, perfect, and _completely _loyal) secret Apprentice strode past the cloaked guards unflinchingly, her dark robes blowing lightly behind her. Pure, unbridled power radiated off her like a torrent, so much so that even Sidious was forced to avert his gaze somewhat in order to avoid the discomfort suddenly forming in his gut. Looking directly into his apprentice's eyes was like looking at your own death, and Sidious was not eager for such a thing.

Noting her master's discomfort, the apprentice's full and plump lips curved upward in a breath taking smile. Her pure teeth looked like they had been cut from pearls. Their brightness starkly contrasted with the darkness and menace that exuded off her aura like a wave. Her dark, silky hair draped down her shoulders, blending in perfectly with her crisp and freshly ironed clothes. The Emperor's red clothed guards averted their gaze as her perfect face turned slightly in their direction. They were practically blushing underneath their masks.

"Zariah Suanna," Sidious said slowly, partially distracted by the swell of her breasts underneath her robes, "Was your mission completed?"

"Obviously, Master," Zariah scoffed, not even bothering to bow to the Emperor of the galaxy, "Had I not completed it, I wouldn't have come back."

Sidious, who made no move to punish his apprentice for her impertinence for some reason, although it may have been that he was busy trying to get a good look at Zariah's perfectly rounded ass, replied, "Very good, Apprentice. Now then, let us move on to future events."

Sighing like the nineteen year old teenager that she was, she pouted and crossed her arms, "Fine, whaddya want from me now?"

"Don't worry Zariah, this assignment will be easy, all you'll have to do is . . ."

Then, out of the blue for no real reason, Zariah flew forward, _literally_. She flew two feet off the ground and slammed her silver, blue, purple, yellow, red, orange, maroon and black colored lightsaber straight in the surprised Emperor's chest. The Dark Lord's mouth lay open for a moment, struck with shock and confusion, but then screeched and exploded violently into a blue wave of energy. The Emperor's royal guards didn't even twitch as their master evaporated into the air and Zariah took her former Master's throne.

"Gary," She called, and immediately one of the royal guards stepped forward. Zariah cocked a brow, "Gary, where is Stu?"

"He got married to some chick named Evelangelala Zomimi Fett Skywalker, not sure why, Empress."

"That's a stupid name," Zariah Suanna muttered to herself, "Anyway, Gary I want you to send out a message out to the entire empire. Tell them that now I am in control."

Gary shook his head wearily, "Do I really have to do that? Can't you send out a telepathic message to every sentient being in the galaxy or something?"

"Of course I can!" Zariah screeched, her dark eyes changing to a blistering red, "But I have more things to attend to, just do it!"

"Fine," Gary mumbled, walking down the stairs to the elevator, "Stupid Stu, he was always the perfect one who did everything, asshole . . ."

His words were cut off as the door closed and descended. Zariah, apparently not fazed at all by recent events, stood up from her chair and began to pace, her eyes blazing with a blue fury all of the sudden.

There was still one thing to be taken care of.

000

In the slums of the Imperial City, the new Empress found herself in a disgusting alley way. Oddly enough, she didn't seem at all disturbed or even enraptured by the sights of decay and death, nor did she react to the slime and garbage that slid down the walls of the alley. No one made a move for her, not a single low level sentient tried to do anything because her beauty scared them all away.

She strode deeper into the alley, her night vision allowing to her to see perfectly in the blackness. A single person was slumped down against the wall, a mop of black hair covering his face. A single syringe lay near his twitching hand, recently used. Using her perfect reflexes, she was able to sneak up to within an inch of him until he finally noticed her. She could have stayed hidden if she'd wanted, but that wasn't what she was here for.

The man's brown eyes flicked up at her through his bangs, "Sister, here to grace me with your presence?"

"Don't worry, Brother," Zariah declared, suddenly having a change of heart spontaneously, "I've come here to save you from your fate, the one our parents couldn't."

"I'm not your brother anymore," He snarled, standing up on wobbly legs, "My name is Ian Thompson."

Zariah felt her brother's slimy presence begin to rub off on her, "You still use our mother's last name?"

"Yeah," Ian said scathingly, "Unlike you, all you did was change your name and pretend it never happened."

Zariah burst out crying randomly, and placed the back of her hand against her forehead dramatically, "I couldn't help that she died, brother, it was all our father's fault."

"Don't try to push away blame, I know what you did!"

Zariah sniffed, having moved back into her dark side personality for no reason, "I never want to talk to you again, brother!"

Ian lunged forward, completely ignoring her beauty and her 'perfection' and snatched her wrist, his teeth bared in a look of vengeful rage, "You may have fooled the rest of the Galaxy, but I see your dark heart, and now I'm going to give you a dose of reality, you bitch!"

Stunned and overall feeling a feeling of creeping ice in her gut, Zariah let out a strangled cry. Her power was fading, and she could feel her perfection fading as her brother's 'reality' seeped into her vein and corrupted her. Her yellow eyes burned with spectacular light, and then rolled back into her head. She fell unconscious before her head even hit the ground.

Ian let her fall dispassionately, his eyes narrowing bitterly as her form lay still in the dirty alley. Out of the darkness, Emperor Sidious appeared and glared down at his staged apprentice. Despite being a malevolent dictator at heart, and being something of a misanthropist, Sidious had a higher hatred of Mary Sues and Gary Stues than anyone else, even Jedi. He had dedicated himself to killing any that he found.

"Did you change her?" Sidious demanded.

Ian mumbled under his breath out of disrespect, but otherwise nodded obediently, "I won't miss her."

Sidious nodded with pleasure, "Good, I'll make sure your fix is delivered to whatever slum you live in. Meanwhile, your precious sister will be taken to some desolate planet and hunted down; I assume you have no problem with this?"

Ian nodded eagerly, "Just give me my fix and we're all good."

Sidious rolled his eyes in disgust and turned away, a dark smile blooming on his wrinkled face as he gazed down at the fallen Apprentice. It was time to put his usual plan into action.

000

Whenever Zariah dreamed, she would usually dream of her dead parents, her dead Grandparents, and just about every other prior generation that had died because of some evil cause or another. The Apprentice always dreamed of her parents the most, because of the great tragedy that had befallen them.

When the prophecy of ultra, fantastical, mysterious, cryptic, and doom filled future was delivered to them by Master Yoda, they immediately tried to give her up to the Jedi so that she could be trained in the way of the force and eventually fulfill the prophecy. Unfortunately, on the way to the temple, Trandoshan slavers captured them and took Zariah, her brother, and her parents on a slave ship.

For years on end, she had worked as a slave among the Trandoshans until she was a grown woman, and when she finally turned nineteen, the Trandoshans killed her older and feebler parents. That had tipped Zariah over the edge, and as she killed them with her sudden command over the force, they let her because they were completely distracted by the fact that her breasts had grown by several sizes in about three days.

After she had managed to land the ship on the world of Corellia, her brother had run away and become a wasted drug addict and bitter. Zariah, being the overall perfect and loving person that she was despite having fallen to the dark side, paid for them both to go to Coruscant to see if he could get clean. Then when he didn't, her personality had reverted back to its usual evil and malicious nature and she refused to help her destroyed brother any longer.

This was the totally uncontrived back story to Zariah Suanna.

Getting up from her unconscious state was a puzzling challenge for Zariah than it usually was. Whenever she got knocked out (Which was rare, but was nevertheless good for dramatic affect) she usually rebounded with a spring of fresh energy and with no harm to her in any way shape or form, and then she proceeded to defeat the person who had beaten her with her insane lightsaber skills.

Now though, just opening her eyes seemed to be a challenge. The usual power that was supposed to come to her failed to do so, and she had to put every ounce of force into her eye sockets before they relented and opened. What met her was an inky sky with trace dark clouds drifting in the harsh breeze, something that was completely confusing to her. Hoping to get her bearings, she raised her head and immediately groaned as a pulse of pain, _real pain_, lanced down her neck into her chest, like someone was impaling her with a vibrosword. Zariah couldn't remember the last time she had felt pain in any form, she had always been immune to it, but now it spiked through her every limb like a poison.

She tried to breathe in deeply and force the pain away, but as soon as she drank in the oily air, she started coughing violently and hacking up an unfamiliar substance from her mouth. Breathing in desperately, she coughed some more before she was finally able to breathe without instantly coughing, and once again tried to raise her head.

Zariah failed just as miserably as before, and she groaned in pain and frustration. Both of those two feelings were completely unfamiliar to her, and she couldn't immediately recognize them as they coiled together in her gut. She felt paralyzed, unable to function, completely drained as she looked up at the sky with a panicked look. She couldn't even tell where she was, or who was nearby, and without her powers to aid her in her recovery there would be no hope for her.

Just as she was about to give up hope, a faint blue aura flickered in the corner of her eye. Confused, and feeling something in her stomach that resembled fear (Although she didn't know that it was fear at the time because she had never felt fear) she tilted her head a little and saw something that seemed familiar.

A man, wreathed in a blue aura and looking slightly transparent, was walking towards her with a calm step, looking neither surprised nor interested in the pain that she was feeling. Zariah opened her mouth, but the Apprentice's throat felt like a desert. She knew what it was of course, a force ghost, but that didn't make it any less nerve wracking. Spirits could be malevolent too.

It towered over her and said, "So Sidious has brought another one, eh?"

Zariah opened her mouth to respond, but immediately closed it with a click as her throat screeched in objection. Her eyes said it all though, "Where am I?"

The ghost stroked his goatee and sighed, "Figured that would be your first question, and since you probably won't be speaking anytime soon to ask, my name is Jack, Jack Nichols," He pointed up at the dark sky, where a faint trail of red electricity skated across the interconnected black clouds, "You're on a planet called Xeo, in the Deep Core of the galaxy. It's one of Palpatine's pet planets, where he researches, tests things, and kills people. Unfortunately for you, this planet's specific purpose is to make sure people like you are killed."

Zariah gulped and winced, finally realizing that _pain _was bad, and that swallowing when your throat felt like it had been stepped on was not the best of ideas. It seemed like her usual perfect memory was failing her. Jack's words seemed faint and slightly unintelligible as her brain became distracted by other thoughts born from both fear and natural curiosity. Still though, the way Jack phrased 'people like you' drew her attention and she looked up at him with raised eyebrows. Once again, she tried to speak but failed.

Jack seemed a little sympathetic to her plight but otherwise made no move to comfort her, "Don't try to say anything," He suggested which seemed to make the throb in Zariah's throat increase, "Your thoughts read a lot louder than anything you could say right now. Anyway, to answer your question, what I mean is that you're part of a species that is universally hated by pretty much the entire galaxy, the Mary Sue."

Zariah's eyes widened in surprised. She didn't know what a Mary Sue was, which was a rare thing in and of itself. It was a rare thing when she didn't know something. That drew her attention well enough and two single thoughts from her mind radiated outward.

"_Why, and who are Mary Sues?"_

Jack sighed again and began to speak in a practiced manner, as if he had explained it several times before, "Mary Sues were a species of humans, or in many cases mixed species, that were born with an unexplained and inert perfection. No one really knows where they came from, or how they got their perfection, but the point is that after a few generations the Sues became a problem. Their perfection made them arrogant, and believe that they could rule the galaxy, so they started to take over the galaxy. Then the Jedi enacted a mission and slaughtered every single one of them, but about ninety five percent of the population in the galaxy died. Nowadays, some Mary Sues still spring up, but now with the Jedi gone, Sidious has started rounding them all up and killing them, here."

Zariah's dark side momentarily came back, and her fury and anger came back. This was quickly replaced by her original fear.

"_Why?" _She wondered.

"Because, Sidious hates Mary Sues more than anyone possibly could. He doesn't want anything challenging his power, so whenever he finds one, he brings them here. He takes away their perfection, their powers, and their greatness. He did the exact same thing to you," Jack motioned to the fact that she was still on the ground, purely exhausted, "Your body is still trying to recover from your power being drained away, and that's when the Death Squads come around and kill you."

"_How did he take my powers?" _

"Mary Sues are easy to corrupt; usually they're so easy that even being touched for a long moment by a horribly flawed person can weaken their perfection, after that, they're so weak that Sidious can drain away their powers with his own force powers. Then he orders troops to take the Mary Sues here, and then the Death Squads come and kill them. Who corrupted you?"

"_My brother," _Zariah shivered in disgust and contempt, her dark side surfacing slightly.

"Typical," Jack noted, "But for now, I suppose I should help you get somewhere safe, before something happens."

Zariah was finally able to raise her head and say a word, "Why?"

Jack cocked his head slightly, "Because the Death Squads are coming."


	2. Chapter 2

**The Loss **

Having regained her ability to move to a certain degree, Zariah was able to stumble to her feet and grimace as nerves caused her entire body to quake. Out of instinct, she reached for her awesome powers to quell every ounce of pain in her body, but all she found was a huge void in her heart, with the slightest flicker barely coming to her. Gulping, she tried stoking her rage, but she was too tired to even try. Finding her voice, she looked at her ghost companion, "Who are the Death Squads?"

Jack started walking away toward a huge mountain range in the distance, and Zariah limped after him, deciding it was better to follow him than it was to try and find out on her own what a Death Squad was, "They're groups of specially trained soldiers," Jack explained, "Equipped with the most advanced equipment in the galaxy, and they're specifically trained to hunt Mary Sues, including you."

"I can take them."

"No you can't. You could barely make a force push right now much less beat an entire Death Squad by yourself," Jack looked up at the dim red sun that was dipping low to the horizon, bathing the entire surface of the planet in deep shadow, "In fact, you should count yourself lucky, they should have showed up by now on a normal day. Not sure why they're running late, but we should take advantage."

"We," Zariah mused, "I don't need your help."

"The several thousand Mary Sues before you said the same exact thing, and all of them are dead. Would you like to reconsider?"

Zariah opened her mouth to retort, and then grudgingly conceded the ghost's point. She wasn't used to not knowing the answer to something, she always had the answer, "Fine, for now."

Jack smiled briefly, "What's your name?"

"Zariah."

Jack motioned at the tallest mountain, "Come on Zariah, I know where to hide."

000

Trying to climb a huge mountain was near impossible in Zariah's current state, and the higher up she went the angrier and more frustrated she became, and the more frustrated and angry she became the more energy she lost. It should have brought her rejuvenated energy, but instead it seemed to drain her last vestiges of power like a sink.

"You're still in withdrawal," Jack mumbled, noticing her exhaustion, "Better get you fixed up before the Squads find us."

Zariah, breath coming out in heaves and gasps, leaned against the cliff wall and narrowed her eyes in annoyance, "What do you want from me?"

"I'll explain when we get to the cave."

Zariah wanted to press the issue, threaten him with something, but she was far from being able to do such a thing to a _ghost_. She crossed her arms and scowled, "Fine."

"Mary and Gary Sues always were impatient."

Had she been capable of doing so, she would have hit the ghost in the back of the head, "I'm perfect."

"Not anymore," Jack grunted.

After meticulous climbing and several minutes of gloomy silence they finally reached the crest of the mountain. The top of the mountain had been forced up into a shallow cave structure, where they quickly took cover inside. Jack, obviously being a ghost, didn't need to do so, but Zariah greedily took in the fresh warmth offered by the small cave. The entire sky had become covered in black, nightmarish clouds, with red colored lightning flashing and forking across the sky, illuminating the dark horizon. Rain began to fall, at a slow drizzle at first, but then it quickly escalated to pouring sheets of rain that pounded the mountain without restraint. Zariah's robes, which were meant particularly for fashion and accentuating her curves, failed to protect her from cold that started to seep in.

The cave helped somewhat though. Jack sat down on the cave floor and crossed his legs into a lotus position, seemingly waiting for something. Zariah had dozens of questions buzzing in her head that she wanted answers to.

She leaned forward and glared at Jack threateningly, "What happened to my powers?"

Jack shrugged, "Sidious took them away, and you can't get them back from him. You're stuck without them."

"No," Zariah snarled, shooting up with her hands curled into fists, "I want them back; tell me how to get back to being myself."

Jack's face flickered with annoyance before smoothing out again. He leaned back against the cave wall and pushed his hand through his hair, which was rather funny as he was, after all, a ghost, "I knew you would say that. Is it too much for atleast one of your species to be humble and not power hungry for once?" The ghost sighed, "Fine, I'll tell you what I told every other Mary Sue and Gary Stu that got dragged through here."

Zariah leaned forward with a look of keen interest, "What is it?"

"There is a well of force energy that feeds off of the dark energy that circulates around this planet. The well has been building for thousands of years, hidden underneath the dark side aura radiating off of Xeo itself. Every Mary Sue has tried to reach it and failed, either killed by the Death Squads or by their foolishness. However, any who reach it can absorb its power into themselves and get back their energy and power."

Zariah didn't seem concerned at all by the grimness of Jack's warning, in fact, she seemed ecstatic about the revelation. I can get my perfection back, she thought happily, and then I can get back at Palpatine, "Where is it, how far away?"

Jack scratched the back of his head irritably, "Didn't you just hear me describe how every Mary Sue before you failed to get there? Why do you think you even stand a chance?"

"If they didn't make it, then they weren't worthy of being a Mary Sue or a Gary Stu," The Apprentice responded scathingly.

Jack looked up to the Heavens, and spoke as if he were addressing someone in the sky, "May the force know I tried . . . again. If you wish to know the location of the well, it is several miles away past these mountains in a huge desert, directly in the center. Legends say it's concealed in a vortex of dark side power and sand."

Zariah arched a brow, "You don't know?"

"The well has the tendency to change. If you're as good as you think you are I'm sure you'll figure that out soon enough."

000

Neron Suv was really starting to hate his new assignment on Xeo.

The planet was the embodiment of what you would call a hellhole. A completely dead landscape, punctuated by random and sporadic weather that tended to manifest itself as thunder storms and so much rain you couldn't even walk without falling on your ass. Neron knew how it felt, it had happened to him about a dozen times.

Really, when Neron entered into the Imperial Special Forces, he hadn't expected to be dumped on some planet in the Deep Core and then left by himself with a base full of numbskull idiots. Seriously, his superiors and squad members were so mindless that nothing beyond a few words made sense to them anymore. Sometimes he had fun messing with their far more feeble minds, but usually their idiocy just irritated the hell out of him.

The only thing that interrupted the monotony of life at the base on Xeo was hunting Mary Sues, which the Emperor periodically dropped onto the planet for them to hunt and kill. At first, Neron had felt partly guilty about killing helpless women and men without a fair chance; in fact he was rather grateful for when they showed up. Sometimes, when he got lucky, the Sues would manage to last long enough to kill a few of his squad mates. Neron had felt rather sad when he'd been forced to shoot that particular girl in the face.

Really, Neron didn't see himself as a _bad _guy, maybe a little off the moral path but not evil like Darth Vader or something. The Imperial Soldier liked to paint himself as being something of an apathetic character, and maybe a tad pessimistic, to the point where he didn't feel that bad when he had to end the life of another person. Looking in on himself, he knew that he didn't want to stop feeling guilty, that when you stopped feeling guilty you had passed a line that Neron wasn't sure he wanted to cross. Suv didn't really understand it, and at the same time a part of him didn't want to. His strategy had worked up to now, so whenever he pulled the trigger, there was still the smallest tug in his gut.

"Hey," One of his team members rumbled, his uneducated cadence dragging Neron out of his thoughts, "Pay attention, Fries, we've still got a Mary Sue to hunt."

'Fries', it was his nickname that was meant to convey how much smaller he was compared to his burly squad. Neron grimaced bitterly under his helmet and sighed, "Don't worry, Solvier, I'll leave the killing to you."

"Yeah," Chu, the demolitions expert, guffawed, "Make sure you don't steal my kill this time, Solvier."

"Hey," Sani, a heavy weapons trooper, broke in, "Did you guys hear that Frank got a new puppy?"

"What?"

Neron buried his helmeted head in his hand and considered throwing himself off the repulsor lift. He was really starting to regret cheating on his Spec. Ops admission test. He was surrounded by imbeciles and Neanderthals who could barely speak words beyond four syllables, and who couldn't even begin to understand the genius of literature and art. Not that you saw much of either on Xeo, but it would be good to have someone to talk to for once.

"Listen up, men," Sargent Vaurs was the team leader, and also microscopically more intelligent than his subordinates, "We mobilized late, so that stupid Force Ghost probably already swooped the Sue away into the mountains. We've got forty other squads combing the range, standard protocol, and Command has assigned us Mount Oa."

Neron wrinkled his nose at the mention of the Force Ghost. He really hated that ghost; it always made his job far more difficult and also increased the time he had to spend with his squad out in the field. Still though, over the eight months Neron had spent on Xeo, he had noticed that the Sues tended to follow a specific path toward the same location, the desert. This mission probably wouldn't be very special, but the trooper could, at the very least, hope that the Sue took out some of his team before they killed her.

_Please_, he pleaded in his head, _atleast kill one of them, PLEASE! _


	3. Chapter 3

**The Journey **

Jack blew out a frustrated breath as he stepped in front of his new charge, Zariah, already feeling annoyed at the recent turn of events. He was really starting to lose his patience with these Mary Sues and their pompous nature. He had tried to help thousands of Mary Sues and Gary Stus before, but after over fifteen years of trying to get atleast _one _Sue to survive and consistently failing, his patience was starting to wear incredibly thin.

"It's a really bad idea to go out right now in this weather," Jack forced out, trying to keep his tone calm and measured in the face of his erratic charge, "If you don't slip and kill yourself in this rain, the Death Squads will destroy you. I can sense them nearby, combing through the range, trying to find us."

"I can handle it," Zariah insisted angrily, "Get out of the way you bloody ghost!"

Jack stayed resolutely in her way. He could still interact with the physical world in a way, or atleast use some of his energies to use the force in small amounts. The Mary Sue tried to push past him, but Jack shifted his footing and placed his palm against her stomach. Immediately, Zariah froze in place, effectively captured in a stasis field.

Her eyes narrowed in rage, and the slight effort of trapping her had drained Jack of his energy but he put on a determined face to cover it up, "Listen Zariah, I want you to atleast last more than a few hours on this planet in my care, so for once in your spoiled life do as another person says!"

Zariah's eyes looked practically blistering with frustration and fury, but beneath that was a grudging resignation, one that told Jack that he had managed to successfully cow the Sue into submission, atleast for the time being.

_Yep_, he thought, _I've still got it_.

He waved his ghostly hand and the stasis evaporated. Zariah fell to a knee, breathing in heavily through. The stasis tended to constrict the breathing, so it was probably fortunate that she'd been released when she had. Finally, when she recovered, she stood up and looked the ghost straight in the eyes, her entire frame shaking with vehemence and anger. For a moment, Jack thought the Sue was going to actually try to attack him in some way, but at the very last moment she seemed to restrain herself somewhat and instead she turned on her heel and stalked away into the corner of the cave. There she sat with her knees hiked up and her still wet hair hanging in her face, unkempt, sulking. Annoyed, Zariah brushed the bangs out of her face only to have them fall back into her eyes.

The force ghost sighed in relief, and inspected his new charge with more focus for the first time. She was the typical Mary Sue, with large breasts, curves, silky hair, wide innocent looking eyes, and pearl smooth skin. Many men would find themselves mesmerized by the mere appearance of the Sue, but Jack had faced so many Mary Sues that their looks no longer enchanted him in any possible way. There was one thing that drew his attention though, an apparent quiver in her shoulders. She was the picture of a drug addict in withdrawal.

A Mary Sue's perfection was like a drug. It provided a great thrill and power when used, but when it was taken away the Sue's body couldn't get used to the sudden void left by its absence, and couldn't substitute it with anything. That left a vacant hole that sucked away at the Sue's internal body, draining them of energy and vigor in an attempt to fill the hole. Jack had never seen a Sue fully recover from the loss, and that slight shake was always present.

Jack turned away and expanded his force senses, and immediately came upon several dozen teams of Death Squads skulking through the mountains, cloaked in the dark weather and rainfall, trying to find the Mary Sue. The force ghost was amused at how they were scoping through his older hide outs trying to find his charge. The cave they were hiding in was newer, and it would probably be a few hours before they managed to scale the thin mountain path to find them.

He was starting to get weary of this constant quest and failures. He had seen thousands of Mary Sues pass through in an attempt to reclaim their power, and so far all of them had failed, and after seeing so many of them fall it was hard to believe that Zariah would be any different and make it through. If she stayed as cocky as she was, there was no way she would last through a single Death Squad. The Squads had long since gotten used to him helping Mary Sues, and they had learned to understand his certain patterns and his routes. They actually viewed it as something as a game, trying to stop him before he got his charge to his destination.

It was vaguely irritating, but Jack was up for the challenge even after years of trying.

The force ghost looked back over at Zariah. Her head had dipped into her legs, and her breathing had calmed. The tremors were still there though, and they weren't from the cold.

000

Neron really hated this rain, and the fact that he was forced to trudge through the clefts and valleys while trying to handle his movement inept teammates was a near impossibility. Chu was constantly being brought off balance by his huge amounts of explosives hanging off his belt, Solvier's center of gravity was about as firm as a thin piece of paper despite his immense weight and he was constantly tripping over his own feet, and Sani's heavy repeating blaster was tipped more to one side than the other so he was walking at a sloped angle. He then promptly fell into a ditch and had to be pulled up by the rest of the squad before they could continue.

Really, the Stormtrooper contemplated to himself as he shouldered his rifle and tried to keep the rain from leaking into his armor, all these buffoons made it impossible to do anything with any kind of efficiency. They were good for manual labor, and in firefights Neron hardly had to do anything because if there was one thing they were good at were shooting things, but in anything else all they did was make it incredibly difficult to do anything back at base. Once, when he was particularly bored, Neron had started building a house of pazaak cards. Just as he was about to top it off at over four feet in height Chu had come along and belched so loudly the vibrations caused the entire tower to fall. There had been much eye twitching on Neron's part that day.

Neron sighed under his helmet, looking up at the massive Mount Oa, wondering if it was possible to get away with tripping one of his squad members off the mountain path. For the longest moment, he truly did consider it, but then that guilty tug in his stomach drew him out of his malicious thoughts. The Stormtrooper realized that he didn't really want to kill his team members on purpose. The only reason he killed was because it was in his job description, not because he felt the urge to do so.

Neron slapped his wet palm against his helmet in a version of a face palm. Yep, he was diffidently regretting cheating on his Spec. Ops test right about now. Maybe he wasn't cut out for the whole trooper business, if he had the choice he would retire. Then again, there wasn't really any option for retirement in the whole Special Forces contract. Looking back on it, Neron was pretty sure the last guy who tried to retire got shot several times in the crotch.

He shivered and instinctively rubbed his crotch in comfort.

"Hey Fries," Chu barked, "Stop touching yourself!"

Neron rolled his eyes. He was starting to reconsider the whole killing his team members after only a few seconds, "I was not touching myself," He snapped grumpily.

"You better keep that hand to yourself, Fries!"

Vaurs turned his eye on the both of them and barked out, "Chu, keep your thoughts of Fries with his hand to yourself, and for Christ's sake Fries, stop touching yourself!"

Neron briefly thought of smashing his head into a rock face, then decided to just mutter, "Yes, sir," before trying to erase the argument from his head.

The squad continued to trudge through the cold and rain before they hit the foot of Mount Oa. A single snaking path snuck up around the mountain, only allowing for a single file line up and down the path. The entire path practically smelled of a trap, although no else seemed to see its potential as a threat except for him.

"What's the plan Sarge?" Sani asked gruffly.

Vaurs pretended to scope out the mountain, in essence trying to look like the ever astute officer, "We'll go up single file, keep watch on the path above us and make sure we don't get ambushed. Chu, blow up anything that moves."

"Looking forward to it, sir."

Neron rolled his eyes and muttered to himself under the boom of thunder, "Yes, let's launch explosives into the incredibly unstable mountain in the middle of a rain storm, what could possibly go wrong?"

Vaurs didn't hear him, "Let's move out, Squad, double time."

So began the long and treacherous trek up the mountain. It was treacherous, every couple of seconds Neron had to find his footing and try to not slip right off the mountain, which would have been rather ironic considering he had been thinking of doing the exact me thing to his teammates. He had wound up in between Chu and Solvier, and every time the squad stopped to pause he found himself crushed in between his beefier squad.

Growling in annoyance, he tried to push past Chu to get further ahead when in his fervor to get away his foot slipped over the sopping ground. Shouting in surprise and pain as his leg gave out; he toppled forward and fell off the thin path. For a second, his entire body seemed weightless underneath his armor, and his ears seemed to be completely dead to the entire world except for his screams of panic. His hands scrambled for any kind of handhold to hold him up, but all that came to him was whipping air and screeching rain.

His leg suddenly jerked, and reality poured back in as a flaring pain exploded up and down in his leg. His back slammed into something hard, something his armor couldn't defend against and he groaned in agony as he felt something move out of place in his skeleton. Sound and sensation came back in a rush, and he finally came to the realization that he was being suspended, and was most certainly alive. Gasping in air through the respirator in his helmet, he tried to crane his neck and look up. He saw Chu there, holding him in the air by his leg, and doing it rather effortlessly by the look of it.

"See," Chu shouted, not at Neron but at everyone else, "I told you I could lift him with my eyes closed."

Normally Neron would be incredibly annoyed at his near death experienced being treated as a weight lifting competition, but right now he was too busy reveling in the fact that he was alive to be too angry at his teammates.

"I could lift him with hands tied behind my back," Solvier boasted.

"Please," Sani drawled, "I could lift him with just my toe."

At that point, it felt like his leg was wrenching itself from its socket due to gravity, and the constant flow of blood to Neron's head was starting to make him a bit woozy in the noggin, "Could you please just bring me up?"

Vaurs tapped Chu's shoulder, "Lift him up, Corporal."

With a grunt, Chu jerked Neron up, drawing a sharp gasp of pain from Neron as his leg jerked. Chu dragged him back onto the path that, even with his slight frame, could barely fit him. Drinking in breath like a starving man eating a meal, he looked up at Chu with a rare gaze of pure gratitude and breathed out, "Thank you."

"You're not very heavy."

Neron groaned, so much for gratitude.

Vaurs leaned down over him, "You alright, Private?"

"I think my leg is dislocated, Sargent."

Wordlessly, Vaurs reached down and pressed something on his thigh plate armor. Immediately, the plate popped off revealing his thigh covered in a simple white undergarment. Neron hissed at the super intense cold that suddenly rushed in through the opening, but right then he was too busy focusing on the pain to really notice it for long. Gingerly, Vaurs' hand grasped his thigh and shoved upward, forcing the hip joint back into place. Neron shouted hoarsely at the intense pain, back arching with agony.

Vaurs wiped his hands, placed the Private's thigh plate back into place, and stood up, "You'll be good for now, Private, make sure you get checked when you get back to base."

Chu pulled Neron up by the straps of his armor. Hesitantly, the Private tested his leg and winced at the twinge of pain, but then nodded that he was ready to continue. The squad began to shuffle forward again, with Neron limping in the middle of group once again.

_Still in the middle of the group_, Neron thought dismally, _what exactly did I just accomplish other than embarrassing myself and dislocating my leg_?

The rest of the journey was relatively uneventful, and with his injuries as a constant reminder in his head, Neron made sure to go at a much slower and patient pace. It was incredibly slow work, and it must have taken at the very least an hour before they finally stumbled onto the top of the Mountain.

"Search the area," Vaurs ordered, his voice layered with fatigue, "Private Suv, you're with me. We're going to double check the cave over there, keep your weapon ready."

"Yes, Sarge," Neron said, too exhausted to really think or complain in his head. The weather hadn't lightened up the entire way up, and now that they were higher up it seemed like it had only gotten worse. Red lighting glided across the black clouds, and from how far up the Stormtrooper was, it seemed like it was happening only a few inches in front of his face.

Looking away nervously, he followed his leader into the cave, which turned out to be a rather shallow cave that didn't go in to deep. The ceiling was barely high enough for Neron to stand up straight, and Vaurs had to outright hunch over in order to fit inside. There were no visible signs that anyone had ever lived there, but Neron being the cynic that he was wasn't convinced. After all, it was a perfectly usable cave structure that they had just now discovered. The Death Squads tended to avoid Mount Oa simply because it was imposing and intimidating to them. Plus, no Mary Sue had ever been caught trying to climb it, and the force ghost seemed to avoid it.

_Maybe he tricked us? _

"Looks okay," Vaurs said, "Guess this was all a waste of time."

Neron didn't believe it for a second. He looked around the cave and noticed something as another flash of lightning lit up the dark cave floor. Stooping low, and ignoring the flash of pain in his hip, he reached forward and picked up something from the cave floor.

It was a single scrap of black cloth, soggy and heavily worn. Neron smirked, "Sargent, I think we have something."

Vaurs took the cloth and inspected it, then nodded, "I'll alert the base."

000

About a few hundred feet away from the mountain, on the floor of the Mountain Range, Zariah stumbled tiredly. Her ghost guide had disappeared, but his voice still echoed dimly in her head.

_Take a left at the next bend . . . _

Too tired to argue, Zariah did as she was told. Meanwhile, her soggy, thin cloak caught of countless rock faces and tore, leaving a dingy and clear trail for any who happened to find it.


End file.
